


The Wave Returns to the Ocean

by compasspoints



Category: Dimension 20 (Web Series)
Genre: (most characters are background), Afterlife, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, Death, F/F, Fix-It of Sorts, Literally all of the characters die in this, Reunions, ish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-13
Updated: 2020-06-13
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:47:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24697057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/compasspoints/pseuds/compasspoints
Summary: MAJOR SPOILERS FOR EP. 9 OF ACrOCCaramelinda Rocks never expected life to be fair. It never has been.She's thrilled to learn that the afterlife isn't that bad.
Relationships: Caramelinda Rocks/Lazuli Rocks
Comments: 3
Kudos: 36





	The Wave Returns to the Ocean

**Author's Note:**

> Just a quick heads up that a character is killed is semi-graphic detail! The violence is only really descriptive in the first paragraph (and a little towards the end of the second), but the whole fic does deal with death. It's not very graphic, but I did just want to put in a warning to be safe!!
> 
> Also, this might not be the best thing I've every written, but I just needed to get all these emotions out (before everything I type is proven to be non-canonical next week)

As Caramelinda feels the blade run through her stomach, she thinks, oddly, that it doesn't hurt as much as she expected. Her daughter had died less than an hour ago, and the raw grief coursing through her veins was too strong to allow for physical pain to break through. As the blade runs through her gut, she feels a breath forcefully exhaled through her lips. As Calroy’s blade retracts, she feels the hot caramel rush out of her stomach. As she falls to the ground, she hears her daughter, now her _only_ living child scream from across the battlefield.

_Bulb above, this was never the life that she wanted for her family. Isn’t this why there was a war? The war that tore apart her life, the war that took everything from her, wasn’t it all so that everyone could live in peace? Wasn’t this why she couldn’t hate Lazuli for sacrificing herself?_ _Lazuli was far braver than she could ever hope to be, and she saved the world, just to have it threatened again in 20 years? Why did she marry a man she didn’t love? Apparently, even after 20 years of marriage, she didn’t know his secret, a secret that put her daughters, their kingdom at risk. More than all of that though, why was there a war if it wasn’t enough. Why did her daughter die in a trap set for her? Why didn’t she hide the letter better? Why was life so unfair?_

As consciousness flies from Caramelinda’s grasp, she catches glimpses of the battlefield. Ruby’s broken cry, watching her mother and sister fall the same day, using her sister’s blade to slice the last bit of life out of Ciabatta. Liam, sweet Liam, who was in the same life that she had been, who she had tried her best to be kind to, fueled by grief, is almost invisible as he attacks, except for a slight outline of peppermint magic Caramelinda is fairly sure only she can see, a reminder of the sweetness inside the boy. She doesn’t see Lapin. She feels Theo trying to shoot to her side, trying to stop another member of the Rocks family from dying, but he comes just a moment to late, and she can see the tears running down his gummy cheeks, and she wants to whisper to him to focus on who he can save, but the words can’t make it through her throat. She doesn’t see Jet. There’s a distant cousin, a follower of the Order of the Spinning Star running around, sucking life force out of people. She wished she had studied Laz’s work more, but God, it was just too painful. Finally, as the light fades from her eyes, she sees Amathear. She sees the grief burning in his eye’s as they lock eyes for just a second, knowing she will not survive much longer, knowing that they’re both trying to say “I’m sorry and It wasnt fucking fair” as best they can in the second they have. Seeing Ciabatta fall, he runs and with an anger he knows won’t fix anything, but will bring just a morsel of justice to the world, cuts Calroy Cruller right the fuck in half.

The last thing that Queen Caramelinda, Ruler of Candia and the Sugarlands, Countess of Meringue, Keeper of Castle Candy, Heart of the Realm, sees as she sinks into a warm, inky darkness is her family, broken and piecemeal as it may be, and she knows they’re gonna be alright. To the sound of panicked cries and the final blows of battle, her eyes blink shut, and she is no longer here. 

* * *

  
  


The next thing that Caramelinda feels, no longer a queen or countess or keeper, or anything else she doesn’t want to be is a gentle, and oh-so familiar hand on her shoulder. For a moment, she doesn’t move, frozen in shock and fear that she didn’t end up in the same place as someone as incredible as- 

A beautiful voice speaks up, strong but gentle, focused but quivering only slightly with emotion, one she has only heard in dreams for so long that she can’t quite believe it’s really speaking. “Cara?” 

The breath that had been rushed out of her chest comes rushing back in, and on the exhale, “Lazuli.” 

She turns around slowly, feeling very different than she ever has. Everything around her has a dreamy quality to it, she’s floating, and as she looks down she sees the aftermath of a fairly successful battle, with her family gathered around her limp body. She knows she needs answers, she needs help, and her eyes, without a second's hesitation shoot to Lazuli. 

“I-I’m,” Caramelinda takes a moment to look at her hand, now just slightly opaque, “Dead. I died.” 

“Yes, you did.” Lazuli pauses for a moment, as brilliant as a woman as she was, as she is, she had always struggled with moments of high emotion. “I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you, Cara.” 

“No, no,” Caramelinda shook her head. “This is on that shitty piece of cake and no one else. You had no way of helping.” 

“I tried. I sent Ruby a vision, but,” she pauses, emotion boiling over in her voice, “But you know how hard those can be to read.” 

Cara nods silently, unsure of what to say. After a moment of comfortable silence, just taking each other in, Caramlinda throws herself into Laz, wrapping her arms around the hard candy of her. After just a second of hesitation, Lazuli’s arms wrap around her, just as tight as ever, pulling her into her chest, letting her cheek rest upon the top of Caramelinda’s head. They stay there. For quite a few moments. They only break apart when another familiar voice pipes up from above the battlefield. 

“Mom!” 

Carmelinda is fairly certain she's never run to someone as fast. 

* * *

The next few days- or not days, time flows much differently in this after world. But the next few “days” of her existence are peaceful. Not the false peace that had permeated her life for 20 years, filled with people pretending they didn't hate each other to keep the fragile armistice that wouldn’t even last 2 decades. The peace that forced her to marry the love of her life's little brother. The peace that made her raise her daughters in fear instead of love. The peace that died with the first emperor. The peace that clearly never worked. 

Here, there is true peace. She doesn’t exist as she did in Calorum, instead floating from moment to moment. Sometimes she is not present at all, but the darkness that takes her is a comfort, a reprieve. She talks with Jet, spending time with her daughter, telling stories without worrying that it will fuel some death wish she inherited from her father. She spends time with Lazuli, catching her up on all she missed. They both know that there is no new information to convey, but the feeling of a voice you never thought would talk to you again washing over you for hours is sweeter than anything that Caramilnda or Lazuli could have imagined. In exchange for stories about Ruby and Jet’s “breakouts” to Dolcington, unaware of the close eye the Queen's Guard had on them, Lazuli tells her about the brilliance she sees in Ruby, how she is learning so quickly, so incredibly. She talks of only being able to reach out in vague vision, a hint of regret tinting her voice when she talks about how she never wanted to send as many as she used to get. 

“It was hard,” Lazuli says, “to never really be able to be with you. To see all the ways our love could come to a tragic end.”

Caramelinda hums at that, stroking a stray hair back behind her ear as she asks, “Well, do you think it was a curse or a blessing. I know it was hard, but you had the power to see _everything.”_

Without even a second's hesitation, Lazuli cements “It was a curse. I could see everything, but I had no way of stopping anything. I was being pulled between millions of timelines even when I just wanted to be in the one that was real, that was happening.” 

Lazuli pauses, reaching out to place on a gentle hand on Caramelinda’s cheek. “I was never just with you. I tried, but I kept seeing ways I would leave you, or you would leave me and try to come up with a way to stop it. We were never both in the same place for long” 

Caramelinda turns her head into Lazuli’s touch to press a kiss to her palm . “Well, we’re both here now aren’t we?” 

* * *

Caramelinda has really never been one to believe in the Bulb more than acknowledging its existence, and Laz’s intelligence outshone any god that could be out there. The peace that was brokered 20 years was never a peace, it was a pause. A pause that gave her years in a forced marriage, but also gave her two beautiful daughters.

She mourned that Jet would never have the impact that she knew she would. Bulb, despite all she said about abdication, she could see the passion and drive for the world to be _better_ behind Jet’s eyes. 

And Ruby, poor Ruby. It’s hard to mourn, though she does, when you’re on the other side, when you know it all ends up being okay, but the grief that Caramelinda had only had to feel for a day at Jet’s loss (though hadn’t she been feeling it since the peace was brokered, and she could see through the cracks. Since Laz sacrificed herself for a world that would never care enough to make it work. For her two daughters, born into a false peace) was so crushing she could barely breathe. But the rage, the regret that coursed through Ruby worried her. She couldn’t blame her, she couldn't never really know how much she loved her sister, but the bond between them honestly shocked her every day. Lazuli meant a great deal to her, but she was able to recover, even if she was never the same. The twins had always been a part of each other, two sides of the same coin, and she didn’t know how Ruby could go on without her other half. But in her heart, without reason or justification, she knew that Ruby would recover, even if she always felt the pain of this loss. 

And she knew when it was finally time for Ruby to join her other half, not for a long, long time. Not until Ruby is able to lead Candia in a true peace, raise her children in the halls she grew up in, but so differently than she had been raised. Not until she lives a life of happiness, with enough memories to last her forever in the afterlife, knowing her family was waiting for her. \

* * *

When that day finally came, they all were ready. Amathear and Theo had crossed over many years ago, after they were able to be _Grandpa_ and _Uncle Theo_ for many years. Amathear and Caramelinda forgave each other. They both knew it had been a shitty situation, and now they were good friends. Liam had crossed over a long time ago, not long after Caramelinda and Jet. His death was a violent one, but he had been fighting for justice, and he protected a little girl with magic who was threatened by the church. She was safe, and he was at peace with his choices. She held him so tightly when he crossed over, despite Preston shocked squeals between the two of them.

Ruby herself was ready. She had never quite felt the same after she lost Jet, but she moved on. She had a happy life. She raised beautiful children, she had brought in a true era of peace, one not reliant on the whims of the church, one in which magic flourished, not only in Candia but across all of Calourm. She opened so many magical kindergartens, each one in her sister's name. Statues of Jet, Lapain and Liam were all added to the room with her aunt’s. She worried she was leaving her children a world that wouldn’t be safe, but as she was getting ready to leave, she just knew this peace was here to stay. 

She crossed over just as the sun was coming up, ending the night. She died surrounded by love and stepped into even more of it. 

* * *

Caramelinda stood back as Ruby crossed over. Jet was the one to guide her out of the world, and they hugged so fiercely that they toppled over. For the first few minutes, it was hard to look at Jet and Ruby together. Even as she watched her live her life, Ruby was always 18 in her mind's eye. Seeing her next to Jet, she was saddened again by the unfairness of the world. Comparing Jet’s smooth features to Ruby’s ones, with both stress and laugh lines permanently etched into her face reminded her of the life Jet had stolen from her. But as her whole family surrounded her for the first time ever, she couldn’t help but be glad that despite all the evils in the world, she had forever with the people she loved.


End file.
